Rapture in Columbia
by garbageandkneehighs
Summary: When a man is presented so many opportunities to take the easy way out, but always ends up sacrificing himself for the greater good - you have to wonder what it will take to break him. Unfortunately for Uchiha Itachi and his strange but familiar companion, Death is not permanent. OOC, AU, Adult Themes - other warnings inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings include but are not limited to: Unbeta'd, Intentional OOC, AU, Death being extremely fickle about who stays dead, and General Strangeness that will make sense...eventually.**

**Disclaimer: Based heavily on the game(s) Bioshock but twisted to suit my own needs. I do not own Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, or Naruto! I just like to play God occasionally with other people's creations. Also the lines used for quotes in this chapter are also not mine. Kudos to anyone who knows which two songs the phrases come from!**

**You have been informed!**

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Rapture in Columbia

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Chapter 1 - The Lighthouse

'_Murderer! A prodigy...shame he ended out being a... I hate you! Please don't allow anything to happen to Sas - '_

'_I promise... You always say that - '_

'_Forgive me...'_

'_Forgive...'_

_Floating...the echoes ring and fade...he's floating and there is nothing...no pain...no pain..._

"Wake...hey! Wake...up!"

_In the stillness, the echoes sweep him up, there's an insistence, he's drowning!_

_It's all wrong!_

_Where is he...bright! It's too bright!_

"WAKE UP!"

Uchiha Itachi opened his eyes, blinking rapidly against the glare of a setting sun.

A boy with blonde hair and shockingly blue eyes stared down at him with a tentative smile. "Oh good, you're not comatose. I thought I was stuck here with a half-drowned vegetable there for a minute. That would have sucked, right?"

* * *

He remembered the battle. Not just a battle, but THE battle - the Fourth Great Ninja War and his efforts to stop it before it could happen having ultimately proven fruitless.

Itachi was certain after his body turned to dust, his soul had journeyed to a place where the living could no longer call him. There had been a weightlessness like someone had snipped the line between him and the world and he'd drifted away. Despite the fact that the peace he longed for was not what awaited him, at least it was an absence of all things cognizant. It had been like a deep and dreamless sleep.

He had no idea how long he'd stayed that way- it could have been only days or maybe a millennia had passed him by. Perhaps that would explain his strange circumstances.

"Hey, are you okay? I'm sorry for the rude awakening - but you were just kind of floating there, you were breathing - barely - and you're the first person I've seen since I woke up -"

The blond's fretful babbling flowed over him like the water soaking the edge of his cloak. As his eyes adjusted - he immediately noted that there was no blurriness, it was as though he'd never suffered from deteriorating vision - Itachi started to take note of his current surroundings.

First and foremost was himself. He felt remarkably hale, with vision restored and nothing of the previous pain and the insufferable need to hack up his lungs. The key difference being he couldn't detect his own chakra flow and with further internal experimentation, could not activate the Sharingan. So whole purely in the sense that his body was without obvious illness and musculature intact, which was much more than he should have been expecting to begin with. He couldn't be concerned about being thoroughly disconnected from his chakra when he shouldn't have a body at all.

"I'm not sure what this place is...can't open the door, tried..."

Itachi sat up slowly, noting the slight ache of having been sprawled out on a stairway, though not bruised thanks to the buoyancy of being partially submerged in water.

"Crap, I should have pulled you up out of there - sorry, wasn't thinking - "

"Perhaps a wise decision, Naruto-kun..." Getting his footing on the slick stone, Itachi climbed out of the water, eager to shed his heavily drenched Akatsuki cloak.

Sudden silence descended upon him, and Itachi flicked a glance at the now rigid posture of the other man.

Blue eyes were narrowed with suspicion; Naruto seemed caught between staying perched on the stairs, close to Itachi, or moving up to the landing away from him. His expression didn't sit well on his features, almost as if he was struggling to come to a decision about something, especially now that he had a clear view of Itachi's appearance. "How do you know my name?"

Face carefully void of all emotion, Itachi examined the young man for the first time. He looked the same, yet there were subtle details that gave him away as not being the person Itachi remembered. His clothing for one, while being the sturdy construction of ninja wear and the usual orange and black colors, were rather worn and faded. His headband was conspicuously missing, and the whisker scars on his face were more prominent than he recalled. Thinking of scars, he noticed pronounced scarring on the visible parts of Naruto's body, as if none of them had seen proper medical attention. This Naruto, all in all, was rougher around the edges and had a look in his eye that was instinctively wary...a guardedness that Itachi had seen in the other jinchuuriki except him.

"You do not recognize me."

Naruto lost some of the tension in his shoulders and eased up from his crouched position. Though he slanted a foot sideways on the stair, clearly a preemptive measure to beat a hasty retreat if he deemed Itachi a threat. Another red flag as the brash youth that Itachi had known was not the one standing in front of him.

"Should I?"

A trick question. He said nothing, his hands loose and in plain view next to his sides, face still apathetic under Naruto's scrutiny.

"You look like Uchiha...but they were all killed by Danzo's followers years ago." Naruto canted his head left then right, as if he were looking at something in a museum rather than another human being. "Actually, you remind me of my friend Sasuke's brother." A flash of pain darkened his eyes to a slate blue. "Before the public execution anyway."

Itachi didn't flinch. "Execution?"

Hands curled tightly into fists, Naruto spat, "All the Uchiha were executed for mutiny, treason to the village, and plans to assassinate the Hokage. At least that's what Danzo claimed." And then he literally spat, sharply over the stair rail into the rippling water, "It was only the older Uchiha that wanted to kill the Hokage; everyone knew that. Except they didn't stop them from killing my father, and after the Uchiha succeeded, Danzo's men stepped in and took over. All bearing the name Uchiha were put to death - even the kids."

Mutiny...treason...

_Spare my brother!_

It felt like someone had driven a nail between his eyes. Itachi grunted, doubling over with the agony blossoming in his head, his vision grayed out and white noise in his ears.

Calloused hands gripped his shoulders and dragged him up, preventing him from falling face first back into the water.

Gasping for air, Itachi tasted copper on his lips. He blinked away the fuzziness and brought shaking fingertips to his nose. They came away bright red.

"Shit - okay? I'm - lean forward - " Naruto's frantic curses and apologies came in brokenly over the fading static.

"Fine. I'm fine." Itachi willed his racing heart to calm, ignored the lingering ache trapped in his skull, and stood up straight. He patiently pinched the bridge of his nose though there was no real need - he could already feel the flow of blood slowing down.

Reluctantly, Naruto backed off, his hands still half-raised in case Itachi made another dive for the ground. "Yeah...all right. Still, you can't be him, because he's dead..."

Neither agreeing or disagreeing, Itachi took off his cloak and carelessly used the sleeve to mop up the blood on his face. While he did that, Naruto turned away, appearing to examine their surroundings more thoroughly though he kept shooting him furtive looks that were tinged with an oddly hopeful fear. Pretending not to notice, Itachi followed his example and looked around.

The stairs he was on came straight up out of the clear water, leading up to a giant stone lighthouse. It was the only building as far as Itachi could see, and the sky hadn't changed any from the reddish gold of sunset the entire time he'd been awake. Tilting his head back, he considered the statue dressed in the flowing robes of a Kage holding the rotating light at the top between it's hands. On either side were empty coffins, and at it's feet were the bodies of the deceased, crouched in supplication. He immediately thought of Kabuto, covered in scales, maniacally directing the army of dead he'd raised to do his bidding.

"Super creepy, right? Like I was saying before, I tried the door but no go."

Itachi dropped the bloodied cloak on the stairs and walked up the last couple of steps to Naruto's side. "This Danzo you spoke of -"

"Later. I'll explain after we figure out how this place works. Deal?"

Not entirely comfortable that this Naruto seemed relatively ahead of his game, Itachi resolved to be patient. History would reveal itself with time - he'd lived a life of desolation as proof that nothing remains in the darkness forever.

Naruto for his part did a good job of hiding his previous discomfort and shot him a wide grin that was all teeth, clearly eager to move on. Allowing his apathetic frown to soften, showing him that they were in this together for the time being, Itachi surveyed the ten foot tall doors that were the only entrance to the tower. The handles were a polished silver in the shape of a crossed sickle and scroll. There was no visible locking mechanism however without chakra enhanced strength, the doors could simply be too heavy to move.

It disturbed him that he didn't have enhanced senses to ensure safe entrance. Burdened as his ninja identity had been, Itachi had relied greatly on those skills to stay several steps ahead of anyone and anything. Now he had to rely on instinct and judgement alone to determine if the way forward was secure.

"Either we find a way in...or stay here for seemingly all eternity." Except there was a very real possibility that they'd get in and find that while it was nothing more than a lighthouse and they'd still have nowhere to go.

Naruto's nose scrunched distastefully as the unspoken crossed his mind as well. "How 'bout we push on the count of three and bust our way in? I'll go crazy if I'm out here much longer."

Itachi nodded his assent and braced his arms against the left side of the door. Naruto positioned himself similarly, his right arm brushing Itachi's left, and took a deep breath. "All right! One...two...THREE!"

Both men threw their weight forward, feet sliding on the wet stones. Slowly but surely, the giant door moved under their combined efforts. When there was enough room for him to slip through, he stopped pushing, and gestured for Naruto to follow him in.

The fading light from outside barely illuminated a couple of feet ahead, otherwise it was all shrouded in darkness. Opening his eyes wide to make the most of the soft illumination, Itachi could make out the outline of what appeared to be furniture. He felt Naruto's quiet presence behind him, and was glad he hadn't had to give forewarning to caution. This Naruto seemed to understand the importance of stealth in the presence of the unknown. Being completely silent, he moved towards the motionless shapes.

As if triggered by his presence, a light flared to life above what was in fact a desk and chair. Itachi tensed, ready to defend at a moment's notice, but after a few seconds, Naruto released a gusty laugh behind him.

"Looks like we really are alone here!"

Well, maybe he didn't know the importance of not blowing their cover too early.

Not letting his guard down, Itachi noted that the light above the old wooden desk was not the only light to have come on. To their right was a staircase that spiraled up the interior, lit every few feet or so by wall sconces. Naruto wandered towards the stairs, and Itachi sighed softly at his loud reckless footsteps while he investigated the desk.

There were faded posters stuck to the stone wall, too worn to read, but there was a shiny glass photo frame propped next to a stack of moldy books. He didn't open the drawers in case of booby traps, deciding the risk was too great given the poor quality of light. Bending over to look at the displayed picture rather than picking it up, he was surprised to see that there was not a picture in the frame but rather an elegantly scripted quote in a bright red ink.

_It's Either Genocide, All the Planet in Uproar_

_Never Good but Rules of Paradise are Never Nice_

_The Best Laid Plan of Mice and Men are Never Right_

"Huh. There are other things like that on the wall going up the staircase."

Naruto's hushed voice was right next to his ear, and it was thanks to years of being an elite mercenary that kept Itachi from reacting with anything other than calm poise.

There were very few people that could catch Uchiha Itachi unawares, and apparently this Not-Naruto had just joined that exclusive club.

Itachi fluidly turned around, the subconscious comfort he felt before around Naruto disillusioned at this new development. He'd underestimated the other man because he kept viewing him as the brash boy who had insisted his little brother was worth saving, but this person was proving to be rather more enigmatic.

Again, there was a flash of a toothy smile that would have fooled anyone else into letting down their guard before Naruto moved back to the spiral stairway.

At the second sconce Naruto stopped, jerking his head at the decoration on the wall. "What do you think?"

Itachi came to a halt a couple of stairs lower, giving himself a foot of space to keep a suitable eye on his companion this time. He read the quote out loud, enunciating awkwardly at the abrupt style of script.

_Lost Destiny, Far Outcry, They Hear You, No more_

_Numb Feeling, Whole Dizziness, Deep Scars, No Pain_

"Sounds like it goes with a beat." Naruto had a quirky little smile like he was having a joke at the other man's expense.

Itachi cocked an eyebrow. "As in..."

"You know, like a rap!" Naruto started bouncing from foot to foot, swaying his hands back and forth punctuated by weird slapping and stabbing motions.

"I see." Itachi's deadpan stare told him that he looked like an idiot and he was lucky no one else was present to witness their interaction. In no way did it look like he was amused even if he found Naruto's patented buoyancy heartening. While unnerved that he'd so skillfully snuck up on him moment's ago, Itachi sincerely doubted that he was in any danger, at least where Naruto was concerned; it seemed some personality traits couldn't be removed no matter the grisly experiences.

Naruto coughed in happy embarrassment. "Anyway...aren't written phrases like that supposed to be more...uhh...optimistic? It sounds rather helpless with the not being heard and scars bit."

_I am an avenger...you will pay for what you have done!_

Saying nothing, Itachi gestured for them to continue up.

They stopped thrice more to read the quotes, and puzzled over their significance - Naruto verbally and with plain curiosity, Itachi mentally and with growing unease.

As they climbed to the top, Naruto stopped commenting on the meaning of the words and seemed to be piecing together music to flow with the wording, if his humming was anything to go by.

Itachi was thankful for the minor distraction as his own reaction to the words was far more troubled. The words perfectly reflected the dark history of his and his brother's lives from gruesome beginning to haunting end. It was uncanny the blunt accuracy of the expression and it led him to the conclusion that his arrival to that place, with a strange but familiar personality by his side, was no coincidence. Someone or something wanted him there for a very specific reason.

"So altogether now!" Naruto sprinted the last steps to bar Itachi from the expansive landing. He beat the air with his hands, and bobbed his head to a rhythm he'd come up with that went surprisingly well with the words.

"Lost Destiny ~ Far Outcry ~ They Hear You ~ No more!

Numb Feeling ~ Whole Dizziness ~ Deep Scars ~ No Pain!

No Sanity ~ Body Aching ~ Control Your ~ Own Fate!

Invisible ~ Real Enemy ~ Ruin Your Mind ~ Deep Down!"

With every punctuated cry on the last word of every line, Itachi felt his unease solidify into a lead weight of foreboding.

"Darkness ~ Endless ~ Despair ~ Fear No More!

Coldness ~ Blackened ~ No Sound ~ Feel No Pain!

Captured ~ Helpless ~ Ultimate ~ Dreadful Fate!

Powerless ~ Lifeless ~ No Breath ~ Falling Down!"

A couple of more odd hand gestures and Naruto crossed his arms in front of his torso, his face comically contorted to look tough. "Oh yeah! I'm the boss!"

Snorting delicately, Itachi couldn't quite stop his lips from twitching up at the corners, temporarily allowing himself to push aside his suspicions.

Satisfied with his audience's approval, Naruto bowed out of the way.

Awaiting them at the top of the lighthouse was a raised platform, with two luxuriously red velvet seats trimmed in gold. A stand bearing a golden plaque read : Only those who have sacrificed One for the Many may be reborn and admitted into Paradise.

"Paradise...riighht..." Naruto scoffed, eyeing the chairs with distrust. "What are the odds those chairs blow up when someone puts their ass down in 'em?"

Pleased by this shared opinion, Itachi didn't agree outright. Carefully walking around the perimeter of the dais, he tried to find anything that might support it. He looked for trip wires or ninjutsu tags and even attempted to feel for any weird energy signatures that might instinctively give him goosebumps. Several minutes passed by like that, with Naruto fidgeting off to the side, before Itachi finally conceded that there was nothing obviously wrong...other than their own misgivings.

"Past experience dictates that the only option presented is often the option that precedes a dangerous setup and possible assassination." Itachi walked back to Naruto's side, his usual bland expression belying his dark pronouncement.

"Uh huh... I'm sure we're going to end up fighting some big bad something or another, but where are we supposed to go?" Naruto flung his arms out in aggravation, the universal gesture for being stuck between a rock and a hard place. "I don't like swimming THAT much."

It struck Itachi how very easy it was to banter - or his equivalent of it - with this Naruto. There was a moment of nostalgia for his former partner Kisame before he responded. "I will - "

"I get it! We might as well do it together. Even if you aren't - " a slight pause in which Naruto looked like he was choking, "I'm not going to let you be the test dummy, and there are TWO chairs. Whoever set this up wants both of us or there would only be the one." He said this with the utmost certainty that nothing was going to happen unless they were both there to suffer the consequences. Blue eyes met black with the force of a typhoon, challenging Itachi to say differently. "You look like him but you aren't HIM. I know you think the same about me, but it means SOMETHING. I'm not stupid and I'm sure you couldn't be if you tried. Might as well go with it."

Itachi nodded calmly in the silence that followed his long-winded declaration. "I am thankful to know that while you are not the young man I once knew, you share some of his most admirable qualities."

Rubbing a hand through his spiky hair, Naruto mumbled. "You're pretty good too...now can we get a move on? I'm sick of this place and all it's damn water and weird poems."

"Hn." Itachi walked up the dais, and chose the chair on the left. Naruto took the opposite and with one final shared glance verifying there was no turning back, they sat down at the same time.

A few quiet moments and Naruto started, "Seriously, what the he-"

Metal restraints shot out from underneath the armrests, turning Naruto's curse into a squawk of outrage. An alarm blared from somewhere above and the stairs that had led up to the platform fell away to allow a thick metallic shell to shoot up around them. Directly in front, a panel of glass gave them a better view of what was happening on the outside. The ceiling and walls that had surrounded the top of the lighthouse were crumbling away, revealing the perpetually red streaked sky. A rumbling beneath their feet suggested that they weren't going to stuck in the middle of an endless ocean for very much longer.

Naruto was doing his best to try and wrestle free of the restraints, swearing and snarling and doing a fair job of competing with the siren.

Itachi had a white-knuckled grip on his seat and was hoping death would arrive more swiftly than it had done previously.

The rumbling underneath reached a fever pitch before they started accelerating rapidly into the clouds, the din from the alarm falling away with their ascent.

The speaker box next to the glass panel hissed to life. "You have been Judged and deemed Worthy."

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**A/N: So I know this is reminiscent of my other fic except this is going to be a lot more dramatic and gruesome (fingers crossed!) than TIB. I needed something to entertain myself with that wasn't a crackpipe of satirical romance, and well, after beating Bioshock Infinite I found myself making character comparisons and literally fangirled at the idea of Itachi being Booker Dewitt. But no worries! My story is going to be a lot more than a simple rehash of the game! I has big plans, my pretties! Reviews are love!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Warnings for this chapter are the same as before and subject to change in coming chapters!**

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Chapter 2 - Answers That Aren't Answers

Even though they'd only been in the air for maybe a couple of minutes, it felt a whole lot longer than that as they kept going up and up and up.

Naruto had stopped yelling and was now mirroring Itachi's stiff pose, taking deep breaths and only cursing softly under his breath as the cloud cover obscured their view.

Itachi deduced the rumble beneath their feet that had turned into a gentle purring was a good indication that they were going to land rather than crash, and was doing his best not to let his imagination get the better of him. Instead of speculating about their destination and the type of welcoming committee that might be waiting for them, he meditated in the form of remembering. He recalled the simple pleasure of sitting on the veranda of his family home in the spring, before the famed heat of Fire Country set in. During those peaceful moments could he try and convince himself that he was another ordinary citizen of the village, enjoying a languid afternoon before suppertime.

A twinge of pain similar to what he had experienced before lanced through his skull. Itachi frowned as the memory became a little distorted, as if he'd forgotten something about it that was important.

"Do you see that...?"

The memory faded altogether, driven away with Naruto's low question. The clouds were getting thinner, but where one might have expected a stretch of endless sky, there was _land._

It was like a giant had reached down to the earth and tore a chunk of it away to place in the clouds. Embedded in the dark recesses of the bedrock, there was a blue glow - perhaps the source of whatever power was keeping it afloat? - and rising out of the thick foliage of forest was a great city unlike anything Itachi had ever seen.

Elaborate marble buildings sprawled in the middle of an overgrown forest, a glittering beige gem nestled in emerald green. Smack in the center of the city was the biggest structure of all - another statue dressed in the robes of a Kage at the entrance of a veritable castle, posed in such a way that if it had been noon rather than evening it would have appeared as if it held the sun itself.

Naruto was leaned as far forward as the restraints would allow, awe written all over his face yet...Itachi saw another odd flash of suppressed emotion. Attention momentarily diverted from the impossibility of a city in the heavens, Itachi carefully observed the jaw clenched in anger, not fear, and underneath the wonder was an unspeakable grief. Such incongruous expressions and behaviors - it was like looking at a superimposed image in black and white. The edges were distinct, but hard to define between what was two whole parts. What was he hiding? And why was Itachi there to begin with?

There were too many unknown variables at work that Itachi could see but didn't understand to what end. That needed to change and before he found himself in a fight for survival...which was probably exactly what he'd woken up to.

The immediate future wasn't looking so promising as the machine they were stuck in declined towards a tiny clearing in the forest encircling the metropolis.

"Welcome to the Garden of Paradise. May you find here the Purpose, the Truth, and the Glory of Existence," the voice over the speaker announced. "Wash your hands in the Fountain of Mercy to begin your journey of Enlightenment."

Tree leaves whispered along the outside of their metal shell, and a cobblestone path was laid out perfectly where it smoothly landed. A whistle of steam precluded the glass panel popping and gliding open in unison with the metal restraints recoiling back into the armrests. Naruto immediately flung himself up out of the seat, swift to exit the pod while Itachi shadowed him in a more dignified fashion.

Stepping out into the fresh air, Itachi couldn't help but think he was back in the forests of Konoha. If it wasn't for the stone path, he'd have thought he was standing on the main road leading to the village. A part of him couldn't help speculating if this was some form of genjutsu feeding off the memories of his past; it was certainly possible given the capability of the ninjas that had crawled out of the woodwork in the last war. His mastery of the art of illusion told him that it was real, his instincts argued there was something more complex behind it all...

"Okay, now what? Where's this fountain that it - they - should we just follow the path?" Naruto turned in a circle, anxiety coming off him in waves.

Itachi was already walking, his left hand at rest in his pant's pocket. Maybe he could learn something from the people in the city.

"Hey! Don't take off like that!" Jogging to catch up, Naruto huffed, falling into step with Itachi's pace.

They traveled like that for a bit, both seemingly wrapped up in their thoughts but actually seizing the other up. Naruto broke first, his hands clasped behind his head in a play of nonchalance. "You know, when I saw you in the water, you didn't look like much."

Itachi didn't reply, not remarking that being half-drowned in water may have been the reason for looking less than impressive.

"But you're taking this really well - you've seen a lot. You move around like some fighters I've met...but I doubt you could take me!" Naruto pumped a fist into the air, and then as suddenly as it'd come, his light humor abruptly switched to stony-faced seriousness. "Are you actually Uchiha?"

Black bangs hid his smirk; his questions may be answered sooner than he'd anticipated. "Yes."

"From the Village Hidden in the Leaves?"

Itachi dipped his chin affirmatively, before shooting back his own question. "What was your father's name?"

Naruto didn't answer directly, hands shoved deep in his pockets. "If you are who you say you are, then you should know that."

"What I would know is how you and I, from two seemingly conflicting realities, have come to coincide here?" Itachi watched Naruto stuff his hands deep in his pockets, blue eyes resolutely on the ground. "Was it you who summoned me?"

"No!" Naruto glared ferociously, like he wanted to punch him for even suggesting it, "I don't know how you got here - nothing is making sense anymore!" His hands whipped out to tear at his hair. "This is all fucked up!"

Not taking pity on him for his emotional outburst - though Itachi could tell this was an honest one - he pressed. "Tell me what this place is."

"I _can't _- "

A shriek of metal grating against metal rent the air, scaring birds from the treetops.

"Damn, damn, damn! Come on, we gotta go!" Naruto grabbed at Itachi's arm, catching hold of his wrist.

Well aware that he was hardly prepared for combat, Itachi didn't protest. Another shriek sounded, closer this time, followed by a crackling bellow that was like the roar of a tailed beast over a loud speaker.

They ran at top speed down the straight road, staying away from the trees as the dense foliage provided ample coverage for whatever it was that was pursuing them. Whatever it was was either extremely powerful or huge or - even worse - both, as the splintering of bark and the toppling of trees accompanied the roaring.

It was gaining on them.

Several more yards and Itachi was already feeling the strain on his body, telling him he needed to slow down, to pace himself, when they finally came up on a barrier wall that separated the city from the forest. A break the length of the road in the wall was exactly what they needed and the crashing that was practically right next to the two men came to an end as they blitzed through.

Naruto stopped as soon as they were a couple of feet inside the city outskirts, listening as the clamor started retreating back the way they had come. "That...was...close...," he huffed, bending so his hands clasped on his bent knees, Naruto squinted at Itachi behind sweat-drenched bangs.

Waiting until his breathing had slowed from a hard pant, Itachi asked, "What was it?"

Naruto shook his head, irritably swiping a forearm across his eyes, "I can tell you we definitely don't want to mess with it. Not yet." He shook his head firmly when Itachi scowled, "We need to find a place to lie low first. I'll tell you everything that I know when we're safe."

Itachi wiped away the sweat on his own brow to mask his frustration.

"There's that stupid fountain! I wonder if they meant that we have to actually wash our hands in the water..." Naruto spoke with forced cheerfulness, totally at odds with his darting glances and in a rather hushed voice as if he was cautious of being too loud.

Given the ruckus that precluded their arrival, it was strange that there wasn't at least a couple of people there to investigate. Or even a guard station to keep an eye on visitors coming and going - not because there was anywhere else for them to go being miles up in the air - but to warn them of the beast that was wandering around beyond the wall. Actually the more he thought about it, the more Itachi was finding it hard to believe that people were even meant to travel to and from this place safely. Put in those terms, it was as if it were an elaborate cage rather than a paradise.

"Do you know of a place to hide?" Itachi's flat query was almost it's own answer, seeing as Naruto was still prattling on about the fountain.

"Uhm..."

Making his frown apparent, Itachi surveyed the area. Directly in front of them was an admittedly beautiful fountain edged with trimmed hedges and flowers. The path curved around it on either side, branching off and leading towards the smallest buildings which looked to be mostly residential. There must have been something going on towards the center of the city for the houses to appear entirely devoid of life. They could break into one with a cellar or basement, and lay low until they had a better plan to implement. Usually, Itachi would have suggested avoiding people altogether if they didn't want to be seen, but the forest had effectively been ruled out.

"Be silent, and stay close." Itachi picked the path curving around to the left, and started trying homes at random with unlocked doors. The first one he picked was a two story decorated with little window planters and a heavy blue door. An experimental twist yielded no results and with nothing to pick the lock, he moved on. Going around the side, the back door was no better, but the next house over had a cellar door with no chains on the handles. Hoping it didn't latch from the inside, Itachi gave it a shot. It swung open with no trouble at all.

Itachi held his breath, ears perked for any sound to indicate it wasn't deserted. After an ample amount of time passed and nothing happened, he stood to the side and cocked an eyebrow at Naruto, commanding he enter first. Naruto hunched his shoulders and did so, his face a mask of dismay. Itachi scanned the vicinity one last time before he followed, securing the door behind them deftly behind them.

"I can't see..." Naruto's voice came from a few feet away from him.

Using the wall as a guide, Itachi carefully navigated the steps leading down to the cellar floor. "We're most likely to be caught with the use of a light." His hand reached through empty air, and probing with his feet told him he'd reached the bottom. "We'll remain here until you clarify what you have kept to yourself up until now."

A rough sigh beside him ruffled the ends of his bangs, "All right, but it's going to take forever and it probably won't make any damned sense..."

"Try." Itachi sat down on the bottom step, making himself comfortable. "I will listen."

Another sigh, and the soft rasp of clothing sliding along stone. Naruto had sat down as well, preparing himself for a whole lot of talking.

"Okay, but first, tell me if you're from Konohagakure."

"I am."

"And you know my father or well, it's important if you know both my mother and my father...do you?"

Itachi shifted up to the next step so he could stretch his legs out better. "I presume your mother and father are the same as I know them - Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato, respectfully..." And that's when two pieces clicked together.

This Naruto knew his parents.

Before when he had spoken of their different histories, Itachi had focused solely on the entire destruction of the Uchiha line, devastated by the thought of a much younger Sasuke being put to death because of circumstances beyond his control. He hadn't given any thought to the implications of a _successful _coup d'etat. However, it was _Danzo _that Naruto had declared the victor in the bloody grapple for power - which meant either one of two things; either Obito had done the unthinkable and sided with the old megalomaniac or _he hadn't been a part of it at all. Which led to the possibilty that Madara...!_

A blaze of agony erupted again. Itachi hunched in on himself, silently fighting back the symptoms, except this time there was no static.

'_I offer you a deal. Spare the village and my brother, and I will aid you -'_

The memory warped, rewound, and became something else.

'_Aniki...I can't sleep...'_

'_Come, Sasuke. You shouldn't be wandering around so late at night...'_

'_Neither should you, Itachi.'_

'_...Our apologies, Shisui-san.'_

'_He's so scary...'_

'_He has seen many horrible things to protect us, Sasuke-kun. Unfortunately, it makes him seem alarming even when he means well.'_

'_I don't think I want to be a ninja, Aniki...do you think Father would let me work in the tea shop with you?'_

Itachi breathed through his mouth, blood dripping from his nose onto his shirt.

_What if...could it be...he'd never been a ninja...?!_

Naruto was oblivious to Itachi's pain. "Great, that's fantastic. That helps a lot actually. All right so, you're aware of Danzo and his Root army and the Uch - err, your families' plans to kill my father...," a pause and Naruto continued, his voice strained, "But you asked about the execution. That's where it doesn't match up, yeah?"

Itachi barely caught the question, riding out the lingering ache in his temples and trying to force it all together into a cohesive theory.

Two muffled smacks told Itachi that Naruto had hit his fists on the hard floor. "I'm sorry - it wasn't supposed to be like this! I screwed up - I screwed it all up and you're paying for it now too -"

Inelegantly dragging a hand through the worst of the blood he could feel on his chin, Itachi felt the beginnings of exasperation. "Details, Naruto. What do you mean?"

"I...," another heavy sigh and deep breath, "I was selfish...," here Naruto swallowed audibly, and his next words seemed to ring in the dark cellar, "I tried to change history."

Itachi felt the words sink in slowly, the connotations of such an action casting his current situation into a horrifying light.

_The academy teacher frowned severely at the class._

'_Being a powerful shinobi is not a gift, nor your right to do as you please in the world! It's a responsibility to your fellow man and woman to wield it with humility and shoulder the burden of those who do not not have the ability to protect themselves from the true evil that would prey on them. With that knowledge comes the curse of knowing what you are capable of doing what others would say is impossible - and the wisdom of knowing when such power should never, ever be applied!'_

_Keen eyes swept the myriad of pudgy faces, many of them bored or confused, or turned to stare longingly out the classroom windows._

_Everyone jumped when the teacher kicked the desk back into the chalkboard, making it crash loudly to get their attention._

'_Uchiha! Give me an example!'_

_Black eyes that had been focused the entire time on the teacher sparked with intelligence beyond his years. Itachi sat up even straighter in his chair, proud to share the philosophy which was the point of the lecture with the other children. 'The Second Hokage created a jutsu that could bring back the dead - he declared it forbidden as he said it sacrilege for man to be as God and grant life to whomever he wished. Some scholars have also theorized that Hiraishin - if the Fourth devised a way implement it in such a way that true time travel could be achieved - that it would also be proclaimed forbidden; for if the history of man should be rewritten, how could we ever learn from our mistakes if we make it so it never was at all?'_

What the hell had this blond idiot done?

Naruto's voice was small, "Jiraiya-sensei tried to stop me - but I... The war was too much...we were trapped in the mountains, there were refugees from all over - a lot of them were injured and often died after - Bee lost his brother, and then my mother never came ba - " His voice choked off, evidently fighting through tears he coughed, "I wanted...to..." Naruto dissolved into wretched sobs, and Itachi sat numbly, staring into the darkness.

If Naruto had travelled back in his time to stop Danzo coming into power and starting a world war - _would that also have affected his timeline?_

Was that why his memories kept transforming or was that simply the paradox of Naruto's attempts to alter history?

Did that mean...the city in the sky was in fact _Konoha?_

"Naruto...Naruto!" Itachi reached blindly for the crying man, bumping a trembling shoulder, and causing him to quiet down some. "What happened when you succeeded? What did you _change?"_

Sniffling unpleasantly, Naruto hiccuped. "At first...at first I went back to kill Danzo..."

_At first!_

"But I never got the chance! As soon as I made the jump, things started changing on their own! I thought- I thought I had lost my mind! People would talk to me and then it was like they couldn't see me - they would start to bleed from the nose or ears or eyes, and then they'd collapse...sometimes it looked they were dead and other times they would - " Naruto gagged, "they would twitch uncontrollably like they were being electrocuted. I was afraid that you might do that too when...but you seem to be able to handle it..."

He did seem to remain mostly unaffected with the reconstruction of his memories, though Itachi didn't understand why that was. Maybe having already died and been summoned meant the process couldn't kill him, almost like an immunity to the rearranging of time?

"It was terrifying...and that thing we heard in the forest was...," Naruto trailed off as if he couldn't bring himself to speak of it, "...I didn't know what to do so I made the jump again...and ended up at that lighthouse. You know the rest."

Itachi felt the smoldering of rage from rising up, even if he wanted to shake the blond for such foolishness. How did someone go about fixing time? Or were they going to be forced to witness the demise of their universe in this transmogrified space? Uchiha Itachi felt utterly helpless. The sheer weight of such an ordeal made his attempts to stop the machinations of his brethren seem trivial.

They sat there in the cellar for an unknown length of time, Naruto calming down so that he only sniffed irregularly, Itachi meditating on what their next course of action might be.

"For what it's worth...I'm glad you washed up at the lighthouse," hesitant fingers brushed against Itachi's knee, "I honestly don't think I could figure a way out of this on my own..."

Allowing the small contact, Itachi asked broodingly, "You are unable to activate Hiraishin now, is that correct?"

"Yeah," fabric rustled as Naruto adjusted his posture, "I think the initial jump may have made it so that I never had the ability to begin with...or something." He groaned, "So what now?"

After their time spent gathering themselves, Itachi had the notion that at the very least they needed to get out and explore. Between the two of them, they had to find something that would help unravel the chaotic mess that Naruto had made.

"We're going to investigate the house we're currently in and if no answers are forthcoming, we will go elsewhere and do the same." Itachi stood up, ignoring the pins and needles radiating up his shins from sitting too long.

"All right...shouldn't we also get uh, weapons and stuff while we're at it...? Just in case?"

Itachi felt that went without saying, already navigating the small space in search of a door that led into the house itself. He edged around a tall shelf, careful to keep the glass jars lined up on it from rattling under his touch, when he saw a strip of yellow light. Making his way toward it - Naruto muffled his cries as he jammed his toes on the shelf - Itachi found himself thinking of the memory that was and wasn't his, smiling at the thought of serving people strong green tea and dango.

* * *

**A/N: I can't seem to restrict myself to just one emotional concept. Too much angst makes me want to prescribe my characters happy pills. Oh well - I'm having fun hammering this out on the fly. :) I hope someone out there is enjoying this Doctor Who episode Gone Wrong as much as I am!**


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